


Would You Carve Me In A Tree

by Silveny-Dreams (VintageOT5)



Category: Keeper of the Lost Cities Series - Shannon Messenger
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Kissing, One Shot, not necessarily canon but not necessarily not-canon, ridiculous banter, this is entirely self indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 16:48:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20085505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VintageOT5/pseuds/Silveny-Dreams
Summary: Sophie misses Calla, and Keefe notices.





	Would You Carve Me In A Tree

**Author's Note:**

> this is literally just a one shot that I wrote because I needed these two godforsaken idiots to K I S S, damnit. Enjoy! Let me know your thoughts if you'd like.
> 
> (Title is from "What Am I To You?" by Norah Jones - give it a listen, I thought it was relatable for these two!)

As soon as Sophie came home from Foxfire that day and changed out of her uniform, she went straight for the Panakes tree. She’d learned a gnomish poem that day, or a poem when an elf spoke it—elves weren’t the singers gnomes were—and she’d been so suddenly wrapped in longing and grief for Calla that she hadn’t been able to focus on anything else that day. She longed, with every bone in her body, to see Calla’s smiling face again, to hear her beautiful voice. But Calla was gone, the Calla she’d known as a gnome, anyway, and the next best thing was to sit underneath the tree that she’d become, to look at the Panakes blossoms and to think of her.

And sit and look she did, not feeling enough relief from her sadness, even being this close.

“Foster?”

Sophie turned her head, and some of the tension in her chest loosened. Keefe was walking her way, hands tucked into his front pockets, cape slightly askew like always.

“Hey,” she murmured, looking back up into the pale pink blossoms of the Panakes tree.

“Should’ve known you’d be here,” Keefe remarked as he came closer. “You were sending me all kinds of grief in study hall, and you had the gnomish poetry book open. Mind if I sit?”

“When do I ever mind?” Sophie replied, half-smiling.

His grin eased more of the tension in her chest as he lowered himself to sit next to her. “You never know, Foster. People’s minds change all the time.”

“You know me better than that,” Sophie reminded him.

His grin softened, and the look in his ice blue eyes made a whole different sort of tension curl in Sophie’s chest. “Yeah, guess I do.”

Sophie hugged her knees a little closer to herself and made herself look away from Keefe, back up into the branches. “This tree gets a little bigger every time I visit her.”

"That’s because you feed her starkflower stew multiple times a week,” Keefe remarked, and she heard the smirk in his voice. “Seriously, Foster, don’t you remember gnomes only eat, like, once a month?”

“I promised I’d take care of her.”

Sophie felt some of her earlier sadness seep back into her heart. It had been a few years since she’d made that promise to Calla, and not a day went by when Sophie didn’t wish she’d fought harder to find another way.

_There was no other way, though_, Sophie reminded herself. _You would’ve done the same thing_.

"Hey, I’m sorry,” Keefe said, sounding concerned. “I know you promised. And Calla would have been proud. I guarantee she knows you’re keeping your word.”

“Do you think it tastes just as good, drinking stew through roots?” Sophie asked, trying to cheer herself up.

Keefe snorted. “You thinking of becoming a tree now? Is this another Mysterious Miss Foster secret I need to know?”

Sophie grinned. “You caught me. I’ve been a gnome this whole time.”

The sound of Keefe’s laugh made something in Sophie’s chest twinge in an achingly good way, and she felt herself gritting her back teeth together to try and fight off an emotional reaction. After all of this time, she’d been so good—_so good_—at ignoring her own feelings, and she didn’t want to start addressing them today.

“Hang on, hold still,” Keefe said.

Sophie turned her head in time to see Keefe lean in slowly, his hand slowly reaching up.

_Oh, no_. Sophie’s heart hammered into motion at the speed of hummingbird wings, her stomach doing a quick somersault. _Nope, nope, stay down, feelings, stay down…_

Keefe paused for a moment before gently brushing his fingers across her hair.

“Um, it was just a few petals in your hair,” he said, looking down at her with a mix of curiosity and concern.

Everything in Sophie drooped in relief, and maybe—Sophie pretended otherwise—maybe a little in disappointment. “Right,” she whispered.

One of Keefe’s eyebrows quirked. “But that was definitely some reaction. It feels like you’re mentally strangling yourself. Are you sure you’re okay?”

That sounded wildly accurate. Sophie felt like her face was on fire. “Yup. Completely fine.”

Sophie wasn’t sure she liked the smirk on Keefe’s face. “Sure, okay, Foster.”

_Time for a distraction. Come on, Sophie, you’re great at those_. She looked back up into the branches of the Panakes tree and said the first thing that came to mind. “So do you think there are rules about climbing a Panakes tree when she used to be your friend?”

Keefe barked a quick laugh, then looked up with her into the branches. “That’s a really good question.”

“Would it be like her giving me a piggyback ride, or?” Sophie kept talking, trying to tamp down the feelings good and hard enough that they couldn’t resurface. “Would it be, like, disrespectful?”

“You trying to climb away from me, Foster?”

_Yes._ “No.”

But of course, Keefe was smirking, and of course Keefe could tell she was lying, and _god_ this was not helping with the tamping down of feelings.

“I was actually going to dare you to climb it, no special skills involved,” Sophie heard herself say.

Keefe raised both his eyebrows and examined the branches of the tree all around him. “Were you, really?”

“Unless you’re chicken.”

Keefe lowered his gaze back to Sophie, and the challenge simmering in his eyes made her stomach do another gleeful little somersault.

“It’s on, then, Foster. Only I’ll do you one better,” he said as he unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt and started rolling up his sleeves.

Sophie resisted the urge to gulp as Keefe’s arms were slowly exposed. “Yeah? What’s one better?”

Keefe winked at her, sending a little thrill zipping up her spine, then lunged up for the nearest branch.

"Race you to the top!”

“Keefe!” Sophie groaned in exasperation, but she was smiling as she leapt for another low-hanging branch and just barely caught it.

“Probably isn’t a fair competition,” Keefe said, grunting as he pulled himself up and grabbed for another branch. “I’ve done loads of tree-climbing in my day.”

“Yeah? Well, I’ve done it without cheating,” Sophie panted as she inched down her branch closer to the trunk and another branch. “Before ever drinking a bottle of Youth.”

“Child’s play,” Keefe grit out through his teeth, shimmying up the trunk to the next-nearest branch.

It continued like this, with Sophie and Keefe sniping at one another between gasps for breath as they continued, higher and higher, up into the tree, until they reached a spot Sophie hadn’t seen from the ground—a rounded-out hollow in the top of the trunk, like a little bowl.

“I win!” Both of them shouted at the same time when they reached this spot.

“No, me,” Sophie insisted as she collapsed into the hollow space, against him, gasping for air.

“No…” Keefe panted. “Me.”

They both sat there, slumped against one another, catching their breath, in a comfortable silence. _Too comfortable,_ Sophie decided.

“I guess we’d better hope that climbing wasn’t disrespectful,” she said.

Keefe snorted, and his grin made the blood in Sophie’s veins run a little warmer, feel a little brighter.

“Trees are made for climbing, Foster. Why else do they grow like this?”

“There’s probably a good reason,” Sophie argued, not really arguing at all.

She sat up a little, trying to put a little space between them, but the hollow space didn’t offer very much. She crossed her legs so that only their knees were touching. _Yes, that’s better_.

“Do you think she can hear us, too?” Sophie asked, staring around at the pale pink blossoms as they fluttered in the gentle breeze coming off the ocean.

“Guess you never know,” Keefe said, shrugging, before cupping his hands around his mouth and leaning in to a nearby branch. “Yo, Calla, your tree is _wicked cool!”_

Sophie giggled, unable to stop herself, and then she was outright laughing.

“Go on, give it a shot,” Keefe said, grinning as he watched her laugh.

“I—I…” Sophie couldn’t stop laughing. “I can’t, it’s stupid.”

Keefe’s grin was mischievous, and he pretended to be insulted. “You wound me, Foster. You’d really snub Calla like that?”

Sophie managed to catch her breath, the giggles dying down. “Oh, all right.”

She glanced at Keefe, and he raised his eyebrows expectantly, nodding. “Go on.”

Sophie leaned in closer to a nearby branch, eyes still on Keefe. His eyes glittered with amusement.

“You’re going to laugh at me the minute I do what you did,” Sophie accused him, trying not to smile.

Keefe shrugged, his eyes full of wicked mirth. “You’ll never know until you do it.”

Sophie glared at him playfully, then started speaking at the branch. “Um, Calla, hi. It’s…it’s Sophie—_stop laughing, Keefe!”_

Keefe snickered only a few seconds more, then gained his composure and nodded at her to keep going.

“Your…your tree is super-pretty,” Sophie continued, eyes narrowed at Keefe in mock-suspicion. Keefe pressed his lips together tightly, fighting a laugh. “And I hope I haven’t screwed up the starkflower stew recipe so far. Um…if you can hear me, give me a sign, I guess?”

And with near-godly timing, a squirrel scampering in the branches above skittered across a loose branch, and the branch fell down squarely on Keefe’s head.

Sophie burst into more giggles, and this time there was no reining them back in—she grabbed her stomach and howled with laughter, doubling over at Keefe’s stunned look, then his bright red, embarrassed grin.

“Oh—oh god,” Sophie gasped between giggles. “You were right, she can hear us.”

“That wasn't Calla, it was just a lucky squirrel,” Keefe tried to insist, but he was grinning.

Sophie’s laughter shook her so much that Keefe had to grab her and pull her close to him to keep her from falling out of the tree.

“You gotta laugh responsibly, Foster, or laughing could kill you,” Keefe insisted with a mock-stern voice.

Sophie giggled a few more moments, then took deep breaths to steady herself, staring up at Keefe.

God, but his eyes were such a pretty blue. They weren’t as initially striking as Fitz’s teal eyes, but the more you looked, the more you knew, the prettier Keefe’s eyes became.

Keefe noticed her gaze, and his smile softened into something that set off a warning bell in Sophie’s mind. Sophie felt her smile slip from her face, felt her nerves jangle like loose change all through her body.

Sophie gulped, and felt her heart begin pulsing like hummingbird wings again when Keefe’s gaze trailed to her throat to watch the motion.

_Oh, god, too close, too close_, the protective part of Sophie’s brain chimed as Keefe inched a little closer, looking back into her eyes like he could see everything in her heart there…like he liked what he saw.

_Quick, quick, distraction,_ her brain squeaked, and Sophie heard herself say, “should we race back down?”

Keefe paused, freezing in place, eyes searching her face, as if trying to find the answer to a question Sophie didn’t know.

And then he sighed, softly enough that Sophie was sure she wasn’t meant to hear it, and backed away again. Sophie’s insides curled up in confused disappointment at the expression in Keefe’s face—half-understanding, half-sad.

“Um, probably not safe to race back down,” he said, and there was almost no expression in his voice. “I’ll go first, then you can follow.”

“Keefe?” Sophie whispered so quietly she could barely hear it, herself.

If Keefe heard it, he ignored it, scooting out along a branch and hopping carefully down to another.

Sophie’s head and chest were a whirlwind of confused emotions, but suddenly, suddenly—

Suddenly Sophie didn’t think she could do this anymore. Hide her feelings. She couldn’t keep running away from them and continue to be happy. The longer she put them off, the more she repressed them into a box where she never had to confront them, the unhappier she was becoming.

She didn’t want Keefe to go back down the tree. She didn’t want Keefe to back away from her. She didn’t want to continue causing distractions, distractions that Keefe definitely knew were distractions.

She didn’t want Keefe to walk away from her, but he was already moving, already doing it, and Sophie swore she could see Keefe’s mind and emotions retreating into himself, too. Retreating in to protect himself.

_Don’t, please_, Sophie thought. _Come back._

But it was too late, he was already swinging down to the ground and motioning her to follow him.

She started scrambling quickly from branch to branch, down and down and down—she needed to be next to him, she realized, or she wouldn’t be able to stand it.

“Where are you going?” She asked when she was two branches away from the bottom.

Keefe looked back over his shoulder, pausing. “Well, I figured I have to face more one-on-one time with dear old dad sooner or later, and it might as well be sooner.”

“Don’t,” Sophie paused, grunting as she gave up and pushed off the branch, levitating the rest of the way down. “Don’t go just yet.”

Keefe turned around fully, watched as Sophie lit on the ground once more. He folded his arms across his chest and raised an eyebrow.

“It’s okay, Foster. I’m not going to push you. I know when people want to be alone, remember?”

“Maybe you’re wrong this time,” Sophie insisted, striding over to him.

Keefe frowned as Sophie stopped about three feet away.

“Well, I might be now,” he mumbled. “But I wasn’t wrong before.”

“I know,” Sophie breathed, and suddenly if she had to look him in the eye, she knew she’d lose her nerve. So she fixed her gaze squarely on the crest pin holding his cape together. “I’m sorry.”

Keefe sounded a little confused, but mostly concerned. “If you wanna be alone, Foster, that’s really fine. I know how that feels.”

“But I don’t, I don’t,” Sophie insisted. “Not right now.”

There was a pause, and Sophie risked a glance up into his face. There was mostly confusion in his face, but…was that a little glimmer of hope?

He unfolded his arms and stuffed his hands in his pockets, shrugging. “Okay.”

“Okay,” she repeated, but it was a relieved whisper.

There was a moment where neither of them spoke.

_If you don’t step at least a little closer to him right now, then all of this will be for naught_, Sophie’s mind nudged her.

Sophie swallowed and took one more step closer, not as big a step as she could’ve, but it was a step.

And apparently that was enough. Keefe’s eyebrows raised a miniscule amount, and Sophie made the mistake of looking him in the eyes, and damnit, they were so big, so blue, that she couldn’t look away.

“You good?” Keefe murmured, and his eyes didn’t look icy or cold at all, but warm.

Sophie tried to keep her breathing even as she drank him in, but it was difficult. It must have taken a miracle on her end, to have gone this long without deliberately noticing Keefe Sencen, one of her best friends, one of her closest confidantes. But now she wasn’t holding back, wasn’t trying to force her feelings down into the dust, and _god_, she couldn’t stop noticing him, noticing everything about him. The little hollow at the base of his throat, just above the last button on his shirt; the tiniest crease between his brows when he frowned; the one lock of blond hair that resisted all attempts to brush it from his forehead; the way he bit the inside of the corner of his lip when he looked at her.

“I…I’m….” Sophie tried to speak, but she had no clue what to say. “I don’t know.”

Sophie watched his Adam’s apple work up and down as Keefe swallowed. “You’re sending me a whole lot of…something.”

Sophie fought down her fight-or-flight panic at the idea of Keefe reading her emotions with crystal clarity. “Am I?”

Keefe nodded gently, and Sophie couldn’t avert her gaze from his even if she’d wanted to. It was like he’d frozen her in place.

Slowly, like he thought she’d spook, he took another small step closer to her, watching her face intently. When she didn’t move, just flushed bright red and took another measured, careful breath, the crease in his brows deepened slightly.

“Something’s different,” he murmured, and even the words he spoke were careful, like putting them out there could make her run.

And normally they would have—she was still fighting the part of her brain that insisted she make a distraction—but she was tired of distractions. If something was there, it needed to be there, not pushed away.

She shook her head the tiniest bit. “It’s not different,” she breathed. “I’m just…not strangling it this time.”

That glimmer of hope in Keefe’s gaze grew warmer, and the corner of his mouth quirked a little. “I mean, that _is_ different, technically.”

“You’re going to argue sem-semantics?” Sophie’s breath hitched, making her stutter when Keefe took another step closer and their noses brushed against each other.

Keefe was flat-out grinning, and his eyes weren’t just warm, Sophie decided—it was like looking at blue flame.

“Nah. I just like teasing you,” he murmured, his voice feather-light.

His mouth was highly fascinating, Sophie realized. She’d noticed before, tried not to think about it, but there were no holds barred now, and Sophie was going to admire it.

“So you do,” Sophie remarked quietly, and before she could stop herself, before she could overthink, before she could make herself reconsider, she pushed to her tiptoes and slotted their mouths against one another.

Oh.

It was like everything it hadn’t been with Dex, and more that she hadn’t realized she wanted.

Keefe’s breathing froze for a second, and then he was kissing back, and it almost felt to Sophie like they were made to fit together this way, made to do this together.

She retreated for only a brief moment to catch a good breath before kissing him again, firmly, amazed at how strange, how familiar, how different, how perfect it felt.

She felt Keefe’s hands lift up to cup her face, and something in her caught fire when she realized his hands were shaking. Oh god, she had to be an idiot, so stupid—how had she not noticed, not known, not let herself see Keefe, see this, see _him, _and what he wanted…what he wanted as much as she did.

She slid her hands under his cape and gripped her fingers in his shirt, keeping him close, determined to kiss the hell out of him. And Keefe, always one to rise to a challenge, seemed bound and determined to meet her enthusiasm. Sophie relished every second, every moment, every brush of his lips, the feel of his hair against her forehead, the way their noses nuzzled against one another, the way his thumbs brushed along her jawline, the way the tips of his fingers felt at the base of her scalp, in her hair. She loosened her grip in his shirt and slid her arms around him entirely, pressing herself entirely against him, loving all the ways in which their mouths fit together.

It was so much, _so much_, and somehow it had been there the whole time.

How in the ever-loving world had she hidden this from herself? How had she gone this long?

There was no breaking apart, no foreheads resting together as they gasped for air…they only paused, noses still nestled together, breathing hard against each other’s mouths, eyes open again, staring at each other.

“Holy hell, Foster,” Keefe breathed, and she could hear the sheer disbelief, the utter incredulity that it had happened at all.

And Sophie’s insides curled in delight at the desperation she heard in his voice.

“I know, can you imagine how hard I’ve had to strangle that back all this time?” She said, grinning like an idiot, all of a sudden free as a bird to tease him out of his wits.

Keefe’s smile spread over his face like daybreak, the disbelief still there. “I…this…”

“Have I made the great Keefe Sencen speechless?”

Sophie couldn’t believe the confidence coming out of her mouth, but she wasn’t complaining.

Keefe gulped, and Sophie’s face felt like it could break from grinning so wide. She nuzzled her nose against his, pressing a small peck to the corner of his mouth. Now that she’d stopped holding back, it seemed she couldn’t stop herself from drinking Keefe in, couldn’t get enough of him.

“_This_ is what you’ve been strangling?” Keefe asked breathlessly.

“You’re not shocked, are you? I thought you were an Empath,” Sophie teased, ghosting her lips along Keefe’s jaw.

“I…” Keefe paused, steadying his breathing as she placed a gentle kiss just above his chin. “Maybe I _hoped_.”

“No, you _knew,”_ Sophie admitted, and she brought her forehead to rest against his. “You knew, and I didn’t want to know, because I thought it was easier that way.”

“Can’t blame you,” Keefe murmured, but Sophie wouldn’t have it.

“No, you should blame me. I hurt you every time I ignored it or tried to pretend it wasn’t happening. That wasn’t fair, Keefe.”

Keefe shrugged, smiling weakly. “I mean…”

“Don’t let me off easy,” Sophie breathed, letting their lips brush feather-light against one another. “Don’t. I can’t stand it.”

“Too bad, Foster. I’d forgive you anything,” he whispered against her mouth, and this time he was the one who leaned in.

Oh.

Oh, wow.

It was a completely different thing, being kissed as opposed to kissing. It felt like Sophie’s entire body thrummed to life, went from zero to sixty, in a shockingly brief window of time. She could get used to this. _No, probably not_. _Not something like this_.

His hands no longer shook as he cupped her face, but rather offered a firm, guiding pressure, angling their mouths so they fit together perfectly. Sophie felt like her skin was on fire, from her head to her toes, as she held on for dear life and kissed him back with everything she had to give, everything she’d had, all this time, and had hidden away.

Keefe slid one hand from her face to the back of her head, his fingers tangling in Sophie’s hair. Sophie’s hands found his shoulders, fingers curling into the fabric of his cape and clinging like she’d drown if she moved away. She felt…fizzy. Like someone had taken a bottle of champagne and given it a few good shakes.

_This is how I feel about you_, Sophie tried to convey with each new kiss, each new touch of their lips. _And this is how you make me feel_.

“Wow,” Sophie breathed in awe when they managed to break apart again, and her stomach did a happy little leap at the perfection of Keefe’s smile.

“That’s a great word for it,” Keefe replied, and his arms came down and settled around her, and Sophie had never felt this safe, this in tune, with anyone—not even her families.

They stood there in companionable silence for a while, and Sophie slowly felt her brain return to a normal, non-fizzy state.

“Um, are you cool with this? With me…not strangling myself back anymore?” Sophie asked, eyeing Keefe cautiously.

Keefe’s eyebrows came up like she’d said something incredibly stupid, and she laughed as he floundered for a moment before nodding, vigorously, a contented smile on his face.

“You don’t think it’ll be weird, right?” Sophie asked as she slid her arms around his neck in a comfortable embrace.

“You mean for us, or for anyone else?”

“Both,” Sophie whispered.

“Hey,” Keefe murmured, and Sophie lost herself in his gaze again. “If it’s gonna feel like too much to do…you know, this…around people, or even just with me, I can back off a little. We could try and cool our heels or something.”

Sophie shook her head. “No. No, I’m done with cooling my heels and holding back. I can’t anymore.”

Keefe’s soft smile turned into a grin. “Is it bad that I’m _really_ glad you said that?”

Sophie snorted. “No.”

“Good.”

Keefe finally took a step back, offering his hand. Sophie took it, feeling her fingers tremble, and Keefe gave her hand a firm squeeze.

“And we don’t have to have answers or figure anything out right this second, either,” Keefe said as they began walking, hand in hand, back towards Havenfield. “If that helps.”

Sophie shrugged, half-smiling at Keefe. “That might help, I think. But don’t go thinking that that means I’m holding myself back again, okay? I think I made how I feel pretty clear. For once.”

Keefe laughed, and his smile felt like afternoon sunshine on her heart. “I’ll give you that one.”

They walked past the Panakes, and Sophie reveled in how much lighter her heart felt now than it had earlier this afternoon when she’d come to the tree.

“Do you think she noticed?” Sophie asked Keefe, grinning.

Keefe chuckled. “Wouldn’t be surprised if she was rooting for it the whole time.”

And Sophie wasn’t sure she could disagree.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> I'm @silveny-dreams on tumblr if you want more KOTLC content.
> 
> Feel free to comment!


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